The Second Time Is,
by webbedfeet
Summary: Between his reason and his immortality, a boy has one chance to truly come alive. US/UK, one moment in the Revolutionary War.


**Disclaimer** : Axis Powers Hetalia nor its associated characters do not belong to me. I _wish_ I own the United States, hah. (Also, please do forgive Al's angst, he's a teenage boy.) Fic used to be put up elsewhere with a different, cheesier name, but rest assure that it is mine.

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**The Second Time Is,**

The first time Alfred knew he existed was a long time ago, older than his best and worst memories, older than his first words, the first time he saw others like himself. Perhaps he was not even fully formed, merely the shadow of an idea living under the shapes of darkness in the forest, watching the older ones---not like the others as he knew _now_, and not like himself---dancing by the fire, whispering from tree to tree. Other things that happened at the time, he no longer remembered. He had neither name nor memory, nothing to mark him as different from the gods of deers and eagles, except they existed in the flow of living things and he merely sat aside in the shadows, watching, waiting. At the time he did not know for what. For a long time. Perhaps hundreds and thousands of years, until he realized he was simply waiting to be born.

He did not remember much of it, merely the principal things : the smells, the heat, the terror of something being killed. Perhaps it was a deer and a cougar. Perhaps it was one man and another. A beast and its prey. A man and his enemy. It didn't matter. What made it the first time, despite him having seen such things for hundreds of times, was how it was the first time he noticed. The smell of blood. The heat of killing. The terror of knowing that these things was not one with the world, that _he_ was not one of the dead. Of knowing there were barriers between everything, that he, and the world, were mortal and immortal. It was something he could not remember and could not forget.

And if before then he did not live, then afterwards, he was living in stillbirth. Knowing every ragged breath was his, that he also was separated, that unlike the dead things in his bosom he was meaningless and immaterial for reasons unknown. He alternated from watching how things die and weeping, to glancing by like a ghost with no care in the affairs of those fated to be alive, and always in the shadows, crying, watching, walking, wandering every inch of the forest and trampling over every grave made by the older things. Things he did not remember and could only be reminded by digging up old bones and old stories. Prairie winds that he did not recognize, decayed coffins in trees that hosted families of crows, which stared at him like an unwelcome stranger. These things he did not know, but it must have happened because he could feel the history in his bones. He merely knew he existed, and how could such an existence be called 'alive'?

The second time was the first, all over again.

Like the first, the most visceral things about it were simple : the smells, the sounds, the horror of things dying. What was different was that he remembered this vividly, knew he would remember it to the end of his days, would grasp this moment again thousands of times over, this viscous thing, relive it and try to understand it like mud that slips through the fingers. The smell of blood turned to ruddy water with the rain, of gunpowder and greasy bodies. The sound of the rain itself drowning out everything except what mattered. The horror of realizing his own acceptance of how much he'd lost and how much he's going to lose, of reveling in the bitterness of it all. Of knowing that sadness can turn into happiness and vice versa, and that there was no way to be saved from such things.

He knew what he was, now, and who he was. Like the others, he'd had many names. Ones he was given before he could remember a thing, merely a passing rustle of the grass now, and ones given with love or greed, and ones he didn't care for. Sometimes a name could be all of these. He'd never liked the name America, since it was also the name of this land and not _him_, and he'd never liked the name Alfred because he hated names given in memory of anything but the object of the name itself.

And he also hated it because it was given out of love and made things so much messier.

The figure in front of him, the person who gave him his name, not his secret true name but the one that meant _him_ as a thinking being, had stopped trying to speak. No noise escaped from his throat but strangled sobs, and he realized like he never before and would never again, how much this hurt them. The men behind him was silent and still, like a funeral, or perhaps they were speaking and gossiping like all soldiers do when they were not busy trying to kill other soldiers, but the rain all drowned them out. A funeral then for lifetimes of peace and quiet and happiness, with a dirge sung by the rain. Rain, this thing Arthur always used to talk about with a mixture of exasperation and fondness, would give them peace. Give them a moment in a world of their own, with no distractions, no strangers, no laws, for their farewell. He could live with that. He could live with anything, as long as he was living.

"You asked me why, and I'll tell you," he said quietly. He didn't know whether this man, who was the only person to mean a damn in this whole sorry business, could hear a word he was saying, but it didn't matter. They were things that needed to be said, and it didn't matter who heard it or not. That man happened to be Arthur. This fact, which he would never forget, will never mean a thing.

The second time would only come just once, and he needed to be alive.

"I need this freedom. I want it. Maybe it's your fault, but even if you were a saint I'll still say I _deserve it_."

Francis said, Arthur had always been an island among a crowd, no matter how much fire and brimstone they threw at him. But he'd always had a crowd, always had that from day one, knew what he was, the possibilities of his destiny. If this was why he wanted to be sad, Alfred would want to laugh. It would be hollow and bitter, but a laugh all the same. He'd had a thousand years of knowing he existed, but without meaning, without purpose, without all the struggles and pride and everything that makes a person _alive_. And, if one turn truly deserves another, wasn't it damned time he gets to _live_?

"I'm sorry, England."

And if he wanted to get down on his knees and put his arms around this miserable thing who used to love him so much, who taught him letters and how to ride horses and how to slide down haystacks and all those things that was how a person learned to _really_ exist and _really_ laugh like a living thing, he clamped that desire down and swallowed what remained of it whole. What really lasted about them, after all, was not what passed between them, but that Arthur had wanted _this_ and deserved it, too. Only because he'd never been alone, he'd never known it.

"I made a choice. I want to be free."

And if, in saying this, triumph against time and fate caught in his throat and threatened to choke his words, or if the heart he swallowed tied itself into a knot in his chest and made him want to strangle the air until it gave him what he _really_ wanted, if that thing was something else but this---this bittersweet victory of it all---he ignored it. Pretended it never meant a thing, not for a thousand years. Not until the third time, which may or may not come.

There are always prices, and this was what he paid to live.

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End file.
